With Enemies Like These…

When you fight other people’s wars, you get other people’s outcomes. This is the glaring danger of the Libyan intervention.

“The intelligence that I am receiving at this point makes me feel that the leadership I am seeing are responsible men and women who are struggling against Colonel Gadhafi,” Admiral James Stavridis testified to Congress last week. “We have seen flickers in the intelligence of potential al Qaeda, Hezbollah, we’ve seen different things, but at this point I don’t have detail sufficient to say that there is a significant al Qaeda presence or any other terrorist presence in and among these folks.”

Admiral Stavridis, meet Abdel-Salam Rigayi. “We want a society based on the Koran,” Rigayi told the told the Associated Press. “Freedom of religion—we don’t want it,” the Libyan rebel training in Benghazi explained. “We want the freedom to practice our religion, but we don’t want freedom for Jews and Christians and to have naked women and alcohol.”

The sentiment among the foot soldiers is also evident among the commanders. Abdul Hakim al Hasadi, one of the leaders of the uprising against Qaddafi, made his way to Libya after fighting against Americans in Afghanistan. Captured in Pakistan 2002, al Hasadi spent much of the last decade in captivity in Pakistan and Libya. Al Hasadi claims to have recruited about 25 jihadists to kill Americans in Iraq and has been a member of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group. Now he commands a rebel group in Eastern Libya.

So unsure is the Obama administration about the composition of the Libyan fighters that, according to the Washington Post, they have sent CIA operatives into Libya to determine who, precisely, we are aiding.

What the U.S. government glimpses as a flicker, al Qaeda sees as a wildfire. “The mujahedeen around the world are going through a moment of elation, and I wonder whether the West is aware of the upsurge of mujahedeen activity in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Yemen, Arabia, Algeria, and Morocco,” noted Anwar al-Alwaki, the American-born al Qaeda cleric believed to be in hiding in Yemen. “Our mujahedeen brothers in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and the rest of the Muslim world will get a chance to breathe again after three decades of suffocation.”

Though the Obama administration and their al Qaeda enemies may both be guilty of wishful thinking regarding the nature of the uprising, Libya is surrounded by evidence suggesting that a takeover by religious extremists is very possible. To the West, the Algerian government cancelled elections in 1992 when it became obvious that the Islamic Salvation Front would cruise to victory. The ISF aimed to transform Algeria into an Islamic state. To the East, and more recently, the beneficiary of the Egyptian revolution, still dubbed “secular” and “nonideological” by the New York Times, has been the Muslim Brotherhood. A vote to speed up elections was largely interpreted as a victory for the Brotherhood, the group with the greatest organizational head-start in the former one-party state.

Throughout the Libyan intervention, Western leaders have failed to answer the necessary question that nevertheless is seldom asked in such situations: What happens next? Voids generally are not filled by wishes. The Western wish underlying Operation Odyssey Dawn is that a people steeped in Islam, but completely innocent of constitutional representative government, will embrace the latter. The architects of the campaign against Qaddafi show themselves as familiar with the Libyan people as the Libyan people are with them.

Contrary to the popular saying, the enemy of our enemy isn’t necessarily our friend. Muammar Qaddafi has murdered Americans in the skies over Scotland and in a German discotheque. His sons infamously massacred spectators at a soccer match in 1996 when the crowd chanted hostile slogans. The recent slaughter of opponents of the socialist regime, then, is in keeping with its bloody, 42-year history. Qaddafi, “Brother Leader and Guide of the Revolution,” is no friend to the West. But neither, it seems, are his adversaries. The U.S. doesn’t have a dog in this fight amongst dogs.

“I will never hesitate to use our military swiftly, decisively, and unilaterally when necessary to defend our people, our homeland, our allies, and our core interests,” President Barack Obama explained to a primetime U.S. television audience last week. “That’s why we’re going after al Qaeda wherever they seek a foothold.”

The Osama bin Laden-led terrorist group seeks a foothold in Libya. Does the president realize that the loudest cheers for his war come from al Qaeda?

Daniel J. Flynn is the author of A Conservative History of the American Left (Crown Forum, 2008),Intellectual Morons (Crown Forum, 2004), and Why the Left Hates America (Prima Forum, 2002). He has appeared on Fox News, MSNBC, CNN, Sky News, PBS, CSPAN, and other networks. He writes a Monday column for Human Events and blogs at www.flynnfiles.com.

What is even more frightening is that NATO is considering arming the rebels, literally putting weapons into the arms of our declared enemies…Al Queda and their coterie of jihadists. Does anyone really believe that this debacle in North Africa is going to conclude with warm and fuzzy democracies? And Iran isn't sending their Islamist goons into Libya, Syria, Egypt, etc. What are Obama and the State Dept thinking?

Watchman

Impeach Obama and get another enemy of America out.

geez

Wish I could give you a thousand thumbs up! Muslim Brotherhood has got to go.

geez

I love the picture. Look at the guy in the middle… do you think he wants his picture taken? Now, why would that be??? Hmmm, perhaps he would be recognized from his stay at the Guantanamo Hilton?!? Yeah, let's arm our enemy and push Israel in the face… there's a socialist, communist, progressive's un/nato agenda for America. We need leadership, not a bowing, kowtowing spineless sissy sellout in the White House. 2012 is our last chance.

BrownEyedGirl

No-one can dictate to citizens and leaders of and independent sovereign country who can and cant be president. Americans would not tolerate Russia or China dictating who can or cant be the President, Americans wouldnt tolerate another country invading, shooting, bombing, maiming and killing their citizens so why the hell does uncle Sam think it haS the right to dictate to other countries around the world? If the Govts of the world were to concentrate on home affairs and spend the money at home instead of a war that will never end. You reap what you so, I just hope the President and citizens of America wont be surprised when it comes home to roost

geez

Yeah, I thought Obama hated war. That's right, this isn't a war, it's a kinetic military action approved by the un and nato. Perhaps Obama can run on that whole kinetic thing in 2012. "Kinetics you can believe in"… sounds good! Hey BEG, I've heard that roost thing before… hmmm, where was that??? Can't remember, (tapping, tapping) oh well, maybe I'll remember at church on Sunday when Rev Wright gives the message. BEG has a good point, can't we all get along and live in peace with the Muslim Brotherhood and Islam? No wait, BEGging doesn't help, they still cut off the infidels head.

If we fought to win and used that big stick when needed over the past 50 years we would still be respected. But as long as the weak and sissified politically correct lead we will be defeated and mocked by the world we have defended for 200 years.

Jim_C

OK…We've defended the world for 200 years?

How about instead of fighting what are euphemistically termed "wars" in a "sissified" manner we stay out of them altogether?

About the ONLY thing Obama has done right is to get other countries involved in this.

geez

Now there's a thought. Stick your head in the ground and hope no one shoots you in the arse. Why didn't I think of that, it's so easy. Who has an easy button? You do Jim_C. How about we stop with the sensitivity passes and politically correct crap, enforce our laws and take our enemies to the mat until they cry uncle real loud. Then they understand there are immediate consequences for their actions, not un resolutions for 2+ years. The only thing Obama has done right is… cricket sounds.

Jim_C

Geez, geez, you'd think I'm suggesting a strategy that many here at FPM would be opposed to.

But in fact I'm saying, Why not let them fight each other? What do we even think we're doing over there?

geez

Look at the guy in the middle. Do you think he wants his picture taken? Perhaps he would be recognized from his stay at the Guantanamo Hilton. Let's arm our enemy and push Israel in the face… there's a well thought out plan, if you're a un/nato loving socialist, communist, progressive like the one in the White House. 2012 is our last chance.

Jim_C

2012 is your last chance? Really? Wow, I hope so!

Bring on the UN / NATO-loving, socialist/progressive/whatever you guys like to whine about–please! Obama's been wayyy too Republican up to now.

catmann

I think a new opportunity that hasn't been considered before and that is to promote fighting among Muslims in their own countries. What better way to restrict Jihad to the east.

LindaRivera

U.S. leaders know exactly what they are doing! What nation starts a war or jumps into a war without knowing what is going on or who the people are they are going to war for? They are deliberately helping Al-Qaeda and other Muslim radicals!There is nothing new about the U.S. taking the side of Muslim radicals and terrorists. It is a frightening pattern.

In Kosovo, in the nineties, US/NATO took the side of the KLA Muslim terrorist organization and waged ruthless war on Kosovo's Christian Serbs.

During the Second World War, Christian Serbs rescued and hid hundreds of downed American military and allies. An entire village of Serbs were horribly put to death for refusing to divulge the hiding place of the Americans and allies. US/NATO paid the hero Christian Serbs back with destruction, killings and war.

LindaRivera

America is bankrupt!

This war is something for the Muslims to take care of! Not America, UK or any other non-Muslim countries! If the Muslims want a war, let the Muslims use their military, their planes, their money!

We will come out of this (who knows when?) even more financially damaged and even more fanatically hated.

Which will be the next nation the U.S. will go to war for, where the U.S. will fight on the side of Al-Aqeda, the Muslim Brotherhood and other Muslim radicals?

Our country is no longer the country we once knew!

BS77

I like Donald Trump in 2012. He will not waste money on operations like this Libyan fiasco.
Trump 2012. He is light years ahead of the politicians and hack bureaucrats, the poseurs and phonies……I like Trump, Romney and Bachmann. Get organized. Get ready for 2012. I like Rubio too. Common Sense. Stop the trillion dollar deficits and binge spending. Drill baby Drill. Go USA!!!

vlparker

If they don't like naked women why do they have up to four wives, as many concubines as they want and 72 virgins awaiting them in heaven? To wash their clothes and fix their meals? They sure are a confusing bunch.

Jim_C

Because even that tactic is whack a mole. But I certainly agree it would be a wiser use of money and ammunition.